soup stand-in

Last night, Ava and I shredded, sliced, and stirred our way through another soup for you.

Hoping to appeal to the non-soup eaters, we had made soup for the steak-knife. A hearty barley-beef soup with plenty of vegetables.

After putting the Sous Chef to bed, I pulled out my laptop and filled the screen with pictures and pointers. I was nearly finished with my post, when HungryMan came home from an over-extended day at the office. Having worked right through dinner, he was unimaginably hungry.

I pulled the stock pot out of the refrigerator and fired up the stove, quite eager to serve him a bowl of steaming steak and barley.

“Oh, you don’t have to make that right now. I’ll just eat this,” he said, holding up a take-out bag from P.F. Chang’s.

After devouring the one, not quite filling lettuce wrap, he began rummaging through the fridge. He found the three-bite portion of wild rice soup and placed it in the microwave while I returned to my laptop.

It was then that I knew the wet steak was a failure. It couldn’t even entice a man near-faint with hunger.

But could I really scrap an entire post, especially about a soup which had already created a double portion of drama?

You see while I love to cook, I am not keen on touching meat. I generally slice open the package and flip it in the pan without actually coming in physical contact with the meat. Today, while performing my well-practiced maneuver, the blotter, you know the the plastic sheet under the meat somersaulted over the steak, landed in the hot oil and immediately seared itself to the bottom of the pan. Frantic, I attempted to scrape it off with a spatula, but the blasted blotter shriveled and shredded into a multitude of plastic specks. Specks that were now seasoning my precious steak.

I pulled out a paper towel started trying to wipe the plastic off the steak while it was browning in the pan–brilliant, I know. Also a great example for the three-year-old watching my every move.

“Don’t do this at home,” doesn’t quite have the same meaning when you are doing it at home.

Miraculously, my hands exited the pot unscathed, but I can’t say the same for the steak. It is bespeckled in editable shiny white.

At that moment, I had a strong urge to turn off the stove and wash each individual piece of steak. And at that same moment, I knew that this was obsessive and wrong.

In the meantime, the self-starter that is my daughter had taken the carrots that she prepped for me to slice and pulverized them in the “grinder,” along with the celery that was set out for slices, not shredded bits.

The perfectionist in me wanted out. Or at least a fresh start. “This is ridiculous. I’m not scrapping a soup over a dash of plastic. I can will roll it. I can roll with it.”

So I persevered and added in the beef broth and now very chopped onion, carrots and celery. The plastic seasoning instantly rose to the top of the broth like an unsinkable salt. All I could think about as I stirred the plastic around the bits of onion and celery was how this wholesome soup was going to poison my family. And then I kept hearing my mother-in-law saying, “It’s fine. Rachel, it’s fine”–her typical common sense reaction to my neurosis.

Ridiculous as it was, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat it. I knew in an hour we would all be sitting around the dining room table and as soon as Ava lifted the spoon to her lips would scream, “don’t do it!” And it would be Anne Shirley, Miss Stacy and the poor drowned mouse all over again.

So I pulled out my slotted spoon and removed every last piece of steak. I carried my reproachable concoction to the sink and individually scrubbed away the plastic (and flavor) of each and every piece of cubed steak.

It’s true.

By this point, Ava was anxious for another job. So I handed her an onion and we started over.

So I hardly need to tell you that this was a hard-earned soup post, and I didn’t want it to meet the fate of the doomed plastic bits. But Nate didn’t even know that I had rinsed out all the flavor and he wasn’t eating the soup, so how could I possibly recommend it to you?

So I consulted a bag of Brussels. Somewhere between bites two and three, I realized that the soup was forgettable. Even apart of from the cooking fiasco of 2008, this soup had nothing unique and compelling to commend it.

I went to bed tossing and turning over what I could possibly share with the splendid, soup-loving readers whom I had promised a week’s worth of soups too. Okay maybe I tossed once.

And while I won’t admit that I had actually had soup nightmares, I will share what awoke me with the solution: the soup I turn to when I’m in a jam. It’s everything a soup should be: simple, savory, and soothing. And best of all, you can make it in a snap.

This is my friend Alice’s signature soup. She makes it with red potatoes and it’s beautiful. Since I turn to this soup when I’m in a tight spot (like now) and never have red potatoes on hand, I whip it up with regular baking potatoes. It’s still delicious, but not quite as pretty.

(don’t look in the bowl cause that’s not what your getting)

If you are still reading this ridiculously long post, here is your reward:

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9 Responses

Wait, Rachel…what about the dill in Alice’s potato soup?!? And…I think it’s tablespoons of cream cheese, not teaspoons. Ok, I don’t mean my first post ever to be critical, but I just had to check. (See, I’m the kind of friend that would point out the spinach between your teeth!)

Oh no! You’re too funny. Sorry about the plastic bits. I know I’ve done things like that before too. My man also must have meat. If I make a dish without it, he’ll say that the food was good but would be so much better with meat.

I agree…..it HAS to have meat in it if it is for dinner, the farm boy tells me! Now that I am unemployed and walk the street of Paris with all of the fresh veggies, I think I will start getting into this wonderful habit of making soup! Every day I stop and pick up a few more things, since I am “sans” car and need to build up my pantry! Love to read your posts and see that beautiful granddaughter in them!!!

Thank you Christy!! The Dill is essential as is the proper portion of Cream Cheese! I don’t know where the “Dill” and “b” disappeared to, but I’ve added them back in. Typos in the content are tolerable, but completely unacceptable in a recipe. Thanks for helping me out and saving everyone else for non-creamy, bland soup. You’re a pal!

Rachel, it was so great to see you and Ava today! I wanted to tell you that I made your wild rice soup tonight. I was going to wait until this weekend, but couldn’t. Anyway, it’s so delicious! And those dried cranberries added such a nice flavor, I never would have thought to add them. So thanks for a great recipe that is sure to keep me warm many cold Minnesota nights!

I would have been the same way re: the plastic bits. I am trying to use up what I have in the pantry and not go to the grocery store this week so I am definately making this one for supper tomorrow night.